rain, rain, go away

The weather here has been strangely rainy -- as Wil said tonight, this is the first time since he moved here 3 years ago that Seattle has really lived up to its reputation as a rainy city.

But we managed to squeak in a run today -- 6 miles -- which is essentially our first run in two weeks. My hip just didn't feel right for a while, and we didn't run on our Disneyland trip (there's only so many times I want to run around Anaheim...). But I've been resting the hip pretty well, so I wanted to go out and try.

We woke up early; Wil got up and brought me breakfast in bed... but after eating it, I promptly rolled over and went back to sleep. We snoozed for, oh, 4 more hours... finally dragging ourselves up and out of the house after 11:00. Wil had a package to collect at the post office, so we decided to run an out and back on the BGT rather than our standard 6-mile loop.

I felt sluggish and a bit stiff, but eventually warmed up pretty well and felt okay. In fact, I felt great afterwards. Hours later, when we were standing at the Paramount waiting for Them Crooked Vultures to play, I realized that running had really put me in a good mood. I've been feeling extra sad at work -- anxious about getting things done and still using up my "use it or lose it" PTO, etc.

I came across this article the other day in the NYTimes -- basically saying that exercise helps make brains more resistant to stress. Clearly I shouldn't be letting exercise fall by the wayside when things get hectic.